Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

“The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing”

Author — Edmund Burke? R. Murray Hyslop? Charles F. Aked? John Stuart Mill?

Whoever is the author of that famous quote, it is a lesson well learned. Newspapers in America have frequently taken the lead, putting themselves at risk to make sure the public is well informed on subjects essential to their intelligent exercise of their most vital role, their vote for the people who will lead the country.

The Washington Post, after decades of leadership, has decided to do nothing in this election cycle. Its silence is deafening.

The Post, founded in 1877, rose to prominence under the leadership of Katharine Graham. Graham took control of the paper in 1963. She hired Ben Bradlee as managing editor and later executive editor, and the two of them took the paper from a good, regional broadsheet covering Washington, D.C. to one of the leading papers in the nation. They risked their company first by joining The New York Times in publishing what were known as the Pentagon Papers over the objections of the administration of President Richard Nixon, and then by supporting two local, “Metro”, news reporters, Carl Bernsten, and Bob Woodward, as they worked to track down leads about a burglary at the Washington headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The Watergate scandal eventurally forced Nixon to resign.

In 1976, the Post began endorsing canidates for president, recommending voters choose Jimmy Carter. Now, in 2024, the Post has changed that policy. Graham and Bradlee must be turning over in their graves.

In a column published on The Post’s website Friday, publisher and CEO William Lewis described the decision as a return to the newspaper’s roots of non-endorsement:

We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions — whom to vote for as the next president.

— William Lewis, publisher and CEO, The Washington Post

Nonsense.

Lewis got only one thing right in his statement. Some people will read this “as an abdication of responsibility”. That is exactly what it is. A failure of leadership.

Newspapers in the United States have been taking positions since before it was the United States. I’ve often said if the British had confiscated all the printing presses in the colonies, they might not have lost them. From Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Adams to Thomas Paine, newspapers were thought leaders, not just thought reporters. Ethical journalism does not require that newspapers be devoid of opinion, just that they separate opinion from factual reporting. Like most newspapers, The Washington Post did that by placing editorials and columns in the clearly marked opinion section. Readers will still “make up their own minds”. But now they will do so without the benefit of the Post’s expert insight.

So now the sorry saga that is the election of 2024 has claimed another victim. The position of importance held by The Washington Post.

Ironically, the Post’s slogan was added at the behest of billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, Inc., and one of the world’s richest people. I say ironically because Bezos is the owner of The Washigton Post, and the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate was made by him.

As word leaked out that the Post’s Editorial Board had already drafted an endorsement of Vice-President Kamala Harris and had been overidden by the owner, Bezos, his cover blown, wrote his own essay published on The Post’s website:

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election…. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.

— Jeff Bezos, owner, The Washington Post

Nonsense.

The only bias inherent in the operation of The Washington Post is the bias which comes with Bezos’s ownership of the historic paper. To his credit, Bezos acknowledges this “appearance of conflict” in his own essay as he admits “I am not an ideal owner of the Post“. Why he bought the paper in the first place is a question he does not answer.

Bezos’s companies, especially Amazonn.com the e-commerce and cloud computing giant, and Blue Origin, the space exploration company, have literally billions of dollars worth of government contracts. They are also subject to antitrust review by the Department of Justice. Donald Trump, outraged by what he considers unfair coverage by the Post, has a history of threatening the newspaper and its owner.

As far back as 2019, during Trump’s first term, Trump found a way to apply pressure on Bezos. Amazon was due to receive a $10 billion cloud-computing contract from the Pentagon. The Pentagon suddenly shifted course and denied Amazon the contract. A former speechwriter for Defense Secretary James Mattis reported that Trump had directed Mattis to “screw Amazon”. If returned to office, Trump has made it clear Bezos, Amazon and the Post are all on his “retribution” list. Trump has also floated the idea of jailing unfriendly media.

Bezos has a duty to protect all his businesses, as well as himself. Faced with the possibility of Trump winning, stopping his newspaper from endorsing Harris for president would seem a reasonable business decision. But it is still a cowardly act, and one not worthy of the Post.

Molly Roberts and David Hoffman (who last week accepted a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing) resigned from their positions on the Post’s Editorial Board over the decision. They joined editor at large and board member Bob Kagan, who left the board last week, and Michele Norris, who resigned as a columnist.

Columnist Dana Milbank is staying, and he hopes you will make the same decision. “I get the anger, and I share it,” Milbank wrote. He helped organize a statement signed by 21 Post columnists calling the decision a “terrible mistake.”

As many as 200,000 readers may have canceled their subscriptions to the Post. I have not. There seems no reason to punish the hardworking and dedicated members of the Post newsroom becuase of the action of the owner. Milbank wrote, “the more cancellations there are, the more jobs will be lost, and the less good journalism there will be”. I agree. People who want to make a statement can consider reducing their purchases on Amazon or perhaps dropping their Amazon Prime memberships.

Columnist Karen Tumulty wrote on how the Post’s leaders wounded the paper and insulted readers with their flimsy rationale for the decision. The words “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” atop every front page, “now stand as an indictment of ourselves,” Tumulty wrote.  And Alexandra Petri, the Post’s humor columnist, wrote that it was now her reponsibility to endorse Kamala Harris for president.

The Los Angeles Times and USA Today also announced that they would not be making an endorsement in this presidential cycle either.

The daughter of the owner of the L.A. Times, Nika Soon-Shiong, admitted that paper had been set to endorse Harris but her father, Dr. Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire who bought the paper in 2018, vetoed the endorsement. The daughter said the decision was motivated by Ms. Harris’s continued support for Israel in its war in Gaza. The paper put out a statement saying Ms. Soon-Shiong does not speak for the paper, but in interviews Dr. Soon-Shiong did not explain his veto of the planned endorsement.

The primary reason given by USA Today, owned by media giant Gannett Co., is that they trust their readers to make informed decisions on their own. They say they aim to provide readers with the facts and trusted information they need, rather than influencing their choice through an endorsement. This is a significant shift from their position in 2020 when they endorsed Joe Biden, citing the extraordinary circumstances of that election.

The New York Times has endorsed Harris. Rupurt Murdock owned New York Post has endorsed Trump. At least, no surprises there.

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